


You Whirling Wheel

by Retrolite



Category: Elite: Dangerous
Genre: Action/Adventure, Odd Friendships, Original Character(s), Science Fiction, diary entries, rambling stream of thought, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-02 12:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18810937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Retrolite/pseuds/Retrolite
Summary: "Something about the collection of a fee after an everyday salvage job has a comforting sense of routine about it. I made seven-hundred grand, and the galaxy keeps spinning."A freelance Courier pilot reflects on his life as he recovers from a mysterious personal tragedy.  His friends somewhat help.





	1. Chapter 1

And... back in the Pleiades. 

Just landed at Artemis Lodge. It’s good to be home. I think a Thargoid even waved a tentacle at me as I rounded the star. Holy hell, I’m out of it.

I blame a mixture of fasting, blood loss, and Claire. And Administrator Wu. Let’s not let the sneaky doctor off the hook. Call me paranoid, but I think the latter two have been plotting to manipulate me into every medical clinic within twenty light years of my route. This time I was in LHS 3447 when I got the call. Without thinking, I answered it. Ten minutes of ‘I’m not angry just disappointed’ navy girlfriend-face later and I was grumpily on course to Eravate to get bloodwork done. Eravate! I was chain-interdicted eight times alone before I reached Cleve. I was in _Wild Hare_ at the time, so I really don’t know what the culprits were expecting. That ship flies sideways faster than most other ships boost. I’m pretty sure that none of those interdictors were the actual dumbest person in the galaxy, but they better hope that guy doesn’t die.

What was I talking about? Right, Claire and Wu. Those rats.

I suppose I can’t blame them for their concern. Not after I passed out in that Ousey Rock hangar and scared the shit out of Claire. I have a dim idea of the cocktail of drugs they found in my system while I was in Dr Wu’s care. If I could pronounce even half of those names I’d probably be a lot more worried than I am. Midazolam? Sodium thiopental? I’m vaguely reminded of the days in training when we used to slip antihistamines into the coffee of that one creepy pilot who would follow women around and tell them he had a shrine to Alfred Russel Wallace in his dorm room. I’m pretty sure that guy washed out during second year, though it’s possible he’s still out there today impassively telling unfortunate targets of clandestine authorities about the non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans. Annnd I’ve probably said too much. It’s Midazolam time for me again.

I’ve lost my train of thought. Right, medical work. Do you know you have to fast eight to ten hours before clinic assassins can rob you of vials of your blood? I’m definitely feeling down about half a quart. I don’t really remember leaving Eravate. I hope my honour is still intact. I sort of have a fuzzy memory of downing some kind of synthetic meat sandwich at the pilot’s lounge, and then having a loopy conversation with an Adder driver about nitrous oxide. For some reason. And I think I might have tried to buy a Mamba? Remind me to check my credit account later.

Anyway- Claire. I should probably go review all of my security footage and then let her know I made it back to my apartment in Artemis without hitting a star. She’ll appreciate the heads-up. Or I’ll get melancholic long-distance girlfriend-face. It’s a fifty-fifty chance either way. 

A bit depressed now. And hungry. Steak first, call later.

____

Just discovered a bill for a 56,000,000 CR candy-red Mamba. Depression gone, rage intensifying.


	2. Chapter 2

Well... I guess I own a Mamba now. If you had told me half a year ago I’d own one of these things I’d have told you there was a greater chance of me climbing up my own asshole. 

____

Transferring it to my hangar space at Blackmount for further examination. It can keep the Orca company for now. I just woke up, I’m tired, and I’m starving. Shower and breakfast first, contemplate poor life choices later. 

____

Kilmartin was already waiting in the observation room overlooking my hangar by the time I flew into Blackmount. The ferry pilot for the Mamba was there with her, but she had turned her back on him in favour of critically studying my new ship. Classic Kilmartin. 

She critically studied me when I stepped into the room. Her sunglasses were dark pools devoid of sympathy. 

“You look terrible, Simon,” she said. 

I rubbed my rough jaw. She wasn’t wrong. “Thanks.” 

“I thought the general aim of Wu and Harper’s science project was to get you better, not worse.” 

“I’m a work in progress.”

Kilmartin gestured to the bay window. 

“Well, this at least is a step in the right direction,” she said. “Fucking finally, you’ve bought a ship I wouldn’t be embarrassed to share airspace with.”

Kilmartin smuggles illegal goods in a shieldless, paintless Krait with hull damage that looks like wild dogs have been at it, so I felt just a little insulted on the behalf of my Courier at that. I didn’t rise to the dig though, only unzipped my jacket from my throat and stuffed my cold hands into the pockets. 

“Your Grace approves?” I said. 

“Yes. It’s about time you joined the big kids club. This is a stellar move towards it. Even the tower asked the ferry chump for a fly-by after he made initial contact.”

Ferry chump glowered at her from the coffee machine. Kilmartin paused.

“Your girlfriend is going to skin you, though,” she said. 

“I know.” Claire is a diehard FDL pilot. I remember the face she made when the Mamba was initially released, like she’d just stepped in something dirty. I was never going to hear the end of this. 

Kilmartin nodded, grimly satisfied by my morose tone. For a moment we just stood there and stared out the window at my candy-red monstrosity, while the ferry pilot huffily tried to slip out the door with his honour intact. 

To be fair, it wasn’t that the Mamba was a bad looking ship. In fact, it was gorgeous, all sleek and curving lines with polished twin-hulled nacelles that reflected the hangar lights like the shield of Perseus. It looked like a still-shot from a glorious mid-life crisis just crashing into motion. 

The engines were massive. Even just sitting there it seemed like it was doing around six-hundred m/s. It had to be one hell of a mover at cruise. 

I sighed. 

“What now?” said Kilmartin.

“What am I going to do with this thing?” 

“Go fast, kill bad guys.”

“I can do that in the Courier.”

Kilmartin pointed to the huge hardpoint bay. “You can do it in a lot faster in this ship.”

“But I like the Courier!”

“Then quit whining and sell it, christ. Exceed my expectations for disappointment.”

Kilmartin is a good friend sometimes. 

But she had a point. I scratched my chin. 

“Maybe I could take a trip out to Palin and see what he has to say about it,” I said, grudgingly. “Maybe beef up the drives, throw some dirties on it. Take it out for a test flight and see what speeds I can hit.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“No guarantee I’m keeping it. This is just me- learning to live outside my comfort zone.”

“Good for you.”

“If I have to spend a small fortune to make it halfway decent to fly, it’s going straight to an auction.”

“Yes, fine.”

“Fine!”

“Good!”

I moodily hunched into my jacket and shivered in the cool, heavily filtered air. Kilmartin gave me a sidelong look from behind her sunglasses. I noticed, and said, “What now?”

“How’s life outside the comfort zone been treating you so far, anyway?” she said.

Didn’t think she was talking about the Mamba this time.

“Been a bit rough,” I admitted.

“Has Harper sicced a shrink on you yet?”

“No, and don’t encourage her. The last time she brought it up I had to pretend I had an electrical fire in order to cut off my comm.”

Kilmartin absently nodded. “How you feeling?”

“Mostly hungry, to be honest.”

“Aren’t you still recovering from all of that shady bullshit with the detention facility? Aren’t your red blood cells fucked? Shouldn’t you have a juice packet with you or something? I heard you fainted at Ousey Rock.”

“I didn’t faint! I - passed out. There’s a difference.”

“You hit the floor on your face. Is that going to keep happening until you get your weight back up? Do I need to stomp a sandwich down your throat, pardner.”

I shrugged one shoulder. Didn’t really want to talk about this. 

“Come back to my ship and drink with me,” said Kilmartin. “That’ll put some hair on your chest.”

“Isn’t it a little early for drinks?”

“You need to make up for lost time.”

I eyed her indulgently. She brews her own hooch. “Doesn’t your stash double as an engine degreaser?”

“That’s a filthy lie.”

I blame anemia for what I said next. “How about we beat the crowds and head back to Artemis for some lunch at Balthazar’s instead, down on the lower quad? I’m buying.”

Miss Anti-Social smuggler made a face like a shrivelled cat’s ass. 

Guess I was eating alone then. 

____

At Balthazar’s, wolfing down a wrap while the appalled bartender silently judges my dishevelled clothing and sickly complexion from behind his holographic order panel. Starting to remember why Kilmartin avoids the law-abiding side of civilized Artemis society in general.

Food good. Eating good. Feeling better. Bloodier. I could have phrased that better. 

____

Think I’ll take the Mamba for a spin later.


	3. Chapter 3

In retrospect, the funniest part about my conversation with Kilmartin is the fact that she’s apparently unaware that I already own a ship larger than a breadbox - that would be the Phantom. I bought and engineered it almost half a year ago. It’s practically my secondary ship at this point, after _Wild Hare_. Seems like somebody failed to notice that. 

Think I’ll sit on it for a while, see if she catches on. This is the same woman who once chewed me out for failing to notice I’d racked up something like eight thousand credits worth of speeding fines in VZ Corvi, until Wolf 406 Transport and Co. finally sent a bounty hunter out to sternly lecture me about reckless flying. It’d be nice to have something to rub in her face for a change.

____

In the Mamba. 

Wow, I have to admit - this cockpit is nice. Great half-moon panel layout, pristine multi-displays, and I swear to god the enormous sweeping canopy is borderline operatic. I think this is the most overtly dramatic view from a combat ship I’ve ever seen. All I can think of is that I’m going to blast off the pad to the swelling crescendo of _O Fortuna._

Even the seat is comfortable. Extravagantly so, upholstered in this supple black leather that is cradling my ass a little more lovingly than I might have otherwise liked. As I sit here on the pad I can already feel the vibration of the idling engines tingling in my spine. I’m gonna lose precious vertebra when this thing guns it. 

I’m cautiously optimistic here. So far this gives the impression of being a sixty-million credit ship. It feels a little too nice for some dishevelled freelancer, actually. I feel like I’m going to get the bum rush from my own ship at any moment. 

Taking off from Blackmount Habitation in a few minutes. Just going over final pre-takeoff checklists now. New ship, new checklists. Being very diligent about this. Standby for an update after my cockpit workload slacks off. 

____

Well, I’m glad I could make Volkov’s day, at least. 

____

In orbit, heart rate finally settling down. Holy shit. 

Okay, so-

I got my departure clearance. I recognized the crisp voice of the tower controller as Volkov’s; he usually gets the 0900 shift. There was a long pause over the radio after I gave him my type and registration. I think he was expecting the Courier, and when I announced I was in this monster instead a circuit popped in his brain. 

But he got over it and cleared me to five kilometres vertical. Nothing unexpected about that. With a little throttle I eased the Mamba off the pad and rotated the nose upwards, dust swirling across the canopy. 

So far, so good. 

Another nudge on the throttle accelerated it smoothly into the vertical. Those massive Zorgon engines purred as it effortlessly climbed through two kilometres without breaking a sweat. I could already believe this ship was based on a racing prototype. It had just just treated a 1.2G climbout like a pebble in the road. And that was with shitty stock thrusters!

A second later I heard my call sign. Volkov asked me to expedite my departure to accommodate an Orca on a slant approach to the pad I’d just vacated. Thanks to my stupidly theatrical cockpit view I could easily spot the white ship off to my one o’clock. Again, nothing unusual. I was feeling good about myself and the Mamba’s performance at that point, so I thumbed the switch to reply to the affirmative. 

Except my confident radio call came out something like, ‘Check remarks, expediting depaaaaaaargh’, because that was the moment I hit boost. The Mamba screamed towards open space like it had been goosed while my organs liquified themselves against the back of my ribcage. 

To say I was caught by surprise would be something of an understatement. I sat blankly while parts of my brain quietly shit themselves. I was at ten kilometres before I remembered to jump into supercruise. I have a dim recollection of Volkov laughing over the frequency before handing me off. 

Christ up a tree. You’d think being a Courier pilot I’d be used to that style of departure, except the Mamba has a little more mass and a lot more power than my tiny Courier does. And this thing doesn’t even have engineered thrusters yet! My face is going to melt off after Palin does the dirty. 

Warily on my way to the Research Centre now. God, don’t let a Thargoid hyperdict me en route. The last thing I need right now is to accidentally boost into a Medusa. 

____

At the Research Centre now. Intact and unmolested by aliens, even. 

I managed to redeem myself for my early fuckup by somewhat nailing the landing at Palin’s. By ‘somewhat’ I mean it took four of my ten minute landing clearance to gingerly touch down on my assigned pad. Shuffleboard games go faster than that landing did, but it was smooth at least. Thankfully the Mamba is a lot more docile once the landing gear is down. Gonna take a while to get used to that ship. 

Currently sitting with the Professor himself in one of his labs. He took one look at my face when I stepped out of the gateway and graciously offered me a cup of tea. There’s a reason why he’s my favourite engineer. 

Gonna get thrusters and FSD done while I’m here. Think I’ll catch up on what’s new in the Pleiades and then grab a quick nap. My energy levels these days are not what they used to be.

____

So apparently what’s new in the Pleiades is that half of it is on fucking fire! 

Holy hell. I’ll go investigate later in the Courier, once Palin’s done his work. The Mamba can definitely sit this one out. The last thing this nebula needs right now is me adding to its combustibility problem.


	4. Chapter 4

And... Palin’s work is done. I tentatively asked what the Mamba’s new top speed was and he smiled a little. This should be an educational test flight for me.

Jump range on that thing is still the pits, though. It is what it is.

Time to go find out why the Pleiades is burning. More than usual, anyway.

____

Think I’ll take the Phantom out instead of the Courier. It’s in storage in Maia, and it’s a better jumper anyway. 

Heading over to the Noctrach-Ihazevich Research Facility out in Pleiades Sector AB-W B2-4 to get the lowdown on what’s been going on in my hometown, alien-wise. One of the nebula’s worst kept secrets is that Noctrach is an Imperial base whose sole purpose is to study the thargoids. The Feds do the same thing with their own discreet research bases, while both sides pretend not to notice what the other is doing. Neither faction wants a repeat of that Capital ship business.

Meanwhile, to anyone with a functioning brain, it’s pretty obvious what’s going on. When you build your science facility on a ridge overlooking a crashed thargoid ship, one that’s even marked with a tourist beacon, nobody believes you’re there to collect geological samples.

That said, a good place to learn more about thargoid attacks in a thargoid-overrun nebula is from a thargoid researcher working at a thargoid research facility, even if their eyes do dart around a bit when you pester them with questions. And I’d rather not bother the Professor about it. He’s a busy man. 

Time to see if I still remember how to fly the Phantom.

____

I can still fly the Phantom. I’ll take my wins where I can get them.

Off to B2-4.

____

Annnnd... hyperdicted. 

By three Basilisks even, amazing. On quite literally my first jump towards B2-4. For fuck’s sake. You know you’re a Pleiades pilot when the only thought going through your mind as your dead ship is scanned by a trio of looming cosmic horrors is, ‘god damn it, that’s a third of a tank of wasted fuel right there.’ 

And off they scarper. Great, thanks for business. I’m out of here.

____

Listening to the news as I jump. Catching up on Alliance drama so I can tease my Alliance navy girlfriend later. Sounds like Mahon had to chew out President Kincaid for overstepping his authority again. I can’t say I don’t enjoy seeing a wannabe warhawk getting his dick slapped. Good job, Mahon. Settle his hash.

Also, who steals a Diamondback Explorer? I’ve got an insured Mamba sitting on my hands I might be tempted to part with.

‘And those are the main stories this week!’

One more jump to go.

____

The Noctrach-Ihazevich Research Facility. A murky little facility on a murky little planet in a murky little corner of the Pleiades.

I remember when I first stumbled across this place. I had picked up an interesting lead at Relay Station PSJ-17 while scanning their log uplinks and dodging angry Black Flight Diamondbacks. One log mentioned both a crashed recon ship in HIP 17746, and a crashed Thargoid ship in B2-4. I went to go check out the latter, and to my surprise spied the research facility on yonder ridge when I dropped out of glide above the crash site. I immediately made a beeline towards it to both satisfy my curiosity and maybe use the can.

Noctrach exists in a peculiar state. Technically, it’s open to the public. You can land and refuel here. I think it even has basic outfitting. I’ve never tried gaining access to any of the labs, so I couldn’t tell you if that’s doable or not. It’s not secret or protected. You won’t be run off by unmarked black Diamondbacks if you drop in for a visit.

But the impression I get from base administration is that they’d really sort of prefer it if people would loiter elsewhere. It’s a no-frills facility, and grimly utilitarian. The Ant Hill Mob has a foothold here as well, and god only knows what they get up to. I think the only reason I didn’t get the cold shoulder upon my initial arrival was because I‘m on good terms with the station authority, which is the Merope Expeditionary Fleet. Somewhere, my ID is down in their logs with a gold star next to it. 

Down and secured in one of their hangars now. Seems chilly in here. Dim and grungy. I think I’ll track down the ground crew to get fuel for the return leg back to Celaeno, and then take a look around. I seem to recall a small hub over in the main facility, with a pilot’s lounge and terminals. 

____

Just checked the system log here at the lounge. It looks like only fifteen other ships have passed through B2-4 in the past twenty-hours. This place is a bit of a backwater.

Think I recognize one of the IDs on the log, though: a Krait MkII named _Glass Houses_. Isn’t that Jenny’s ship?

Must investigate.

____

And... I found Jenny. 

She was hunched over a plate and a coffee cup in the gloomy little cafeteria. She looked tired and harassed, her cheek planted in the palm of her hand. Our eyes locked when I walked into the room. It probably would have been a very dramatic moment with music and everything if bits of sandwich hadn’t fallen out of her mouth as she stared at me in shock.

Now she’s crying on my shoulder while I hold my hands up in the air like I'm being held hostage. I am damp and confused. 

I should probably look into this. More news at eleven.


	5. Chapter 5

So apparently the news is that I’m dead. So long, Simon. You failed at life. 

____

Jenny has calmed down. She’s still sniffing a bit and wiping her red eyes with her balled-up napkin. We’re sitting at her table and picking apart the rest of her lunch while she explains the circumstances behind my so-called demise in gory detail. 

“Schroeder has been going around telling people that you died in a secret Federation detention facility,” she said.

I swore. That fucking pianist. “And you believed him?”

“Not at first! I thought he was just being his usual asshole self. But then two months passed and nobody could find any trace of you or your ship, and...”

Jenny trailed off and tearily crammed a piece of sandwich crust into her mouth. She’s a bit of a weeper. 

“I could have just been out in the black,” I said. 

“You’re kind of a shit explorer, though.”

”Well, yeah.”

“And you would have mentioned a trip like that to Claire.”

“I suppose I would have.”

“So nobody knew where you were or how to track you down, and Claire got all mean and worried, and then Kilmartin said your medical records were missing so she was going to look for your corpse through her creepy black market channels in case your organs were being illegally harvested, and that was terrible, and then stations across the Pleiades kept coming under attack...”

I had to struggle not to laugh at Jenny’s tragic expression. Eyes as round as lamps. I did a little wave with both hands to reassure her.

“Well,” I said. “I’m alive! And full of organs. So that’s good?”

She sniffed. “You’re so bony, though.”

“I’ve been sick recently.”

Jenny glanced down at the sandwich she was stress eating. A guilty look came over her face before she shoved the plate at me. 

“So was any of what Schroeder said true?” she said.

Ehh, that. 

“Weeell.” I folded my arms around the plate and leaned back in my chair to scan the rest of the poorly lit room. It was empty, but I still didn’t want to have this conversation in the open. Or at all. “I’m obviously not dead.”

“He was so blasé about it, all ‘oh yeah, Simon’s a goner, something-something political prisoner, something-something secret torture.’ Then he ate a bagel. That unfeeling bastard! I’ll skin his ass!”

From weepy concern to casual threats in a heartbeat. “Look, I wouldn’t take anything Schroeder says all that seriously.”

“Then where were you?”

“I was in a hospital being treated for a bug I picked up in Alioth.”

Jenny looked unconvinced.

“Really! That’s all.”

She looked downright squinty. I don’t like lying to my friends, so I casually picked up the remaining half of her sandwich and changed the subject before sad, curious Jenny could poke any deeper.

“So, what was all that about attacks in the Pleiades?” I said. “Does it have to do with the Thargoids?”

Jenny scrubbed her fingers through her scruffy blonde hair with a sigh. 

“You really have been out of it, haven’t you?” she said. “They’re even in the Bubble now. Stations are burning everywhere.”

My mouth was full, so I expressed my incredulity with my eyebrows.

“Yeah! It’s a real mess.”

“When did this happen?” 

“A few months ago? They started out just attacking stations on a rough path from the Pleiades to the Bubble, but only one or two at a time. I haven’t read the most recent report, but I think there’s now something like fourteen stations on fire between here and there.”

Holy shit. 

“Isn’t anyone doing anything about it?” I said. 

Jenny gave a tepid shrug. “Capital ships can’t dent those those things and Aegis military ships are nowhere in sight, so it’s mostly been us independent AX pilots doing all the fighting. IDA’s been delivering supplies for station repairs, they’re brilliant. They actually helped bring your Artemis Lodge online like a month ago after it was attacked. Again.”

 _MY_ Artemis?!

But then another thought jostled for attention. I stared at Jenny. “Wait, you’re an AX pilot now?”

“Yeah!”

She bum-shuffled upright with pride, her hands laced together on the table in front of her. “I’ve killed a pile of scouts and interceptors, it’s nice.”

“You?!”

“Yeah! Completely re-fitted my ship, gutted all the cargo racks and threw in more armour, gauss cannons, flak launchers, heat sinks, yadda yadda. Works great.”

I gawped. This was the same Jenny who used to tearily bitch and moan about being intercepted by pirates while hauling freight around. Now she was out there killing alien monstrosities. My brain stalled coming to grips with this revelation. 

“You,” I said. 

“Why is that so hard to grasp?” she said tartly. “Want to go see my ship? Maybe that will convince you. I’ll even let you deploy the haaardpoooints.”

I was absolutely being patronized at that point, but the twinkle in Jenny’s eyes was only teasing. Besides, I really did sort of want to deploy the hardpoints. I hadn’t seen Guardian weapons up close before. 

“Hell yes, I do,” I said. 

“Eat your sandwich first.”

Jesus christ. 

____

Sandwich good.

____

Wait. Hold up. Kilmartin can get her hands on my medical records?! That’s a bone-chilling thought. I’ll skin her ass!

____

Back down in the hangars. 

Jenny made a show-girly wave of her hands. 

“Ta-dah!” she said. “Please excuse the paint job. I killed a mass of scouts the other day, and they explode into these nasty corrosive clouds when they cack it. Sometimes it can be hard to avoid flying through it.”

I didn’t reply. I just stared. 

The Krait MkII named _Glass Houses_ loomed on the pad, a snaky mess of fuelling lines tangled around its landing gear. It was still in its original grey livery, that much was familiar about it. But the hull was now pitted with damage and its flat, angular surfaces were scarred. It sat beneath the watery beams of the hangar’s overhead lights as if lovingly illuminated by a benevolent god. 

I stood and gazed up at it, a fresh cup of shitty cafeteria coffee steaming in one hand. 

“It’s - different,” I said. 

Jenny prodded me towards the stairs deployed by the front gear. 

“Lemme show you the bridge,” she said. 

Watching a pair of menacing alien-blue gauss cannons unfold from the hardpoint bays mounted to either side of the cockpit while I sat in the pilot’s seat was admittedly one of the coolest things I’d done in ages. 

“All right,” I said. “I think I’m a fan.”

Jenny beamed. 

“Want to go for a ride?” she said. “I was just on my way out to Delphi to check on a damaged megaship.”

Warning bells rang in my mind. I eyed her a bit suspiciously. 

“Don’t thargoids hang out at megaships?” I said. 

“Sometimes, but we won’t fight them! If a Thargoid is there we’ll just sit back and let it scan us and then observe it in its natural environment.”

“I guess I’m down with that.”

Jenny poked a thumb over her shoulder. 

“Then hop into one of the jumpseats,” she said. “I’ll get us a clearance and we’ll jet off, pronto. We should only be gone for an hour or so.”

Getting that clearance right away sounded like a good idea. With the avionics master on I could already hear the dim sound of someone yelling at us over the comm for deploying weapons in the hangar bay.


	6. Chapter 6

Lifting off from Noctrach-Ihazevich. Jenny pointed the Krait’s nose into the vertical and boosted for space. 

I looked over at her from where I was strapped into the right jumpseat. 

“No fighting, remember,” I said. 

“No spooking my sick, skittish passenger, yes,” she said benevolently. 

Somebody was getting a bit cheeky now that her ship had guns on it. “Tower just cleared you. Might want to reply to that.”

“Oh fuck! Uh, check remarks, Noctrach, see you in an hour.”

The jump reticle put our first leg somewhere off to our left. Jenny veered to align with it and I caught a glimpse of the planet’s murky surface dwindling away in the corner of a side window. The FSD countdown began and she jokingly yelled out, “to the repository!”

That will never get old. 

____

In hyperspace. Out of a lack of anything better to do I’ve called up the systems panel. Now I’m studying Jenny’s module priorities with a fair but critical eye. 

“Good god, woman. Why are all your modules set to first priority? Do you want to have an inoperative FSD when some bastard blows out your power plant? Do you _like_ spinning uncontrollably through space with zero functioning thrusters after an encounter with superpen rails?”

Jenny didn’t even look away from her nav panel. “Don’t go all combat pilot on me, Simon.”

“You’re a combat pilot now too! You need to know this stuff.”

“I don’t think thargoids use railguns or snipe modules, Simon.”

“Yeah, well, plenty of equally dangerous humans do. Good christ! Your distributor is set to second priority for some reason, but your cargo hatch is still on first? Your fuel scoop?! God. This must be what electricians feel like when they walk into someone’s DIY wiring project.”

“I will run us straight into this star, Simon!”

____

And... arriving at Delphi. 

I stretched out my legs as Jenny rotated the ship to align with the star and scoop some fuel. Already I could see pinpricks of light racing across the orbital plane: other ships in supercruise. Despite everything, the system still had life in it. 

My thoughts wandered. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Delphi. Donar’s Oak was one of my outfitting stations for a while. Not a great one, ship modules are hard to come by in the lonely frontier that is the Pleiades, but decent. A pile of megaships ply back and forth through the system, which is good for local trade and business. There are even some nice-looking ringed dwarf stars out here. 

And I’ll never forget the day the Oracle burned. It was the first station to be attacked by the Thargoids, a violent shock that woke up the entire nebula. I remember how I groggily climbed out of bed that morning only to read of fire and devastation in the news. How I jammed passenger cabins into _Wild Hare_ and raced out to help evacuate the victims. Ships roaring in and out of the gutted station, smoke and wheeling debris, strobing emergency lights and confusion- the memory is seared into my mind. Not a good day. 

Jenny crowed, waking me from my meditative funk. 

“There’s our megaship!” she said. “Let’s go say hello.”

I leaned over to squint at the nav panel. “A Gordon-class cargo hauler?”

“Yup. They’re stranded. Thargoids. I ran construction materials out to the repair teams for a while. Now I pop in whenever I’m local to make sure they’re all right, and to shoo off any scouts that are giving them trouble.”

She said it so casually, like scouts were comparable to an ant problem or something. 

“Need me to do anything?” I said.

“You can set my module priorities if you like, Mr Combat Zone Man.”

Some smart-alek was asking to have all of her heat sinks ejected at once.

____

 _Glass Houses_ dropped out of supercruise with a bang. 

I leaned forward to get a better view as the Krait deaccelerated. The stranded megaship lay straight ahead of us, the volcanic surface of a metal-rich planet a dramatic backdrop behind it. Even at that distance I could see the sickly green cloud that enveloped the hauler. 

I whistled. The megaship wasn’t much - just two long rails like scaffolding filled with freight containers strapped to a pair of massive engines and a bridge section - but the sight of a ship the size of a space station lying dead in the water never failed to impress. It looked like all the fires were out, but one of the rails was torn at a vicious angle and smoking green caustic damage raked the entire length of the ship.

“Uh oh,” said Jenny.

“Uh oh, what?”

I glanced at the scanner. Sure enough, an unresolved blip flickered in the direction of the megaship.

“Oh, don’t tell me,” I said.

Something parted from the megaship and flew towards us. I leaned far back as it came into clear view with disturbing swiftness: a thargoid vessel, acid-green and spiky. It’s needle-like petals rotated gently as it propelled itself forward. I’d never seen an interceptor like it.

Jenny was delighted. “Aw! Look at this spiky bad boy.”

I resisted the strong urge to climb over the back of my seat. “What is _that?_ ”

“That’s a Hydra! Haven’t you see one before?”

“No, this is a personal first!“

“Ooh, nice! He’s a bit rarer than the other types, but he’s very impressive! Even tougher than the others, and his swarm of bug buddies is pretty huge. He’s got like eight hearts too!”

“Good for him!”

Jenny laughed. “Relax! He’s just like his friends. If we don’t provoke him he’ll honk us and then get bored and wander off.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

The thargoid swanned up. It filled the front canopy from corner to corner. I instinctively held my breath as it glowered suspiciously at us, a giant peering through a keyhole. The entire bridge filled with green light as its scan wove back and forth across the length of the Krait. I gripped my seat as the entire ship shook against the onslaught.

“Has anyone figured out what they’re looking for?” I said. 

“Not yet.”

“What was this megaship carrying?”

“According to the original manifest it was hauling prophyllite, lepidolite, leather, beer, and, um... domestic appliances.”

“All high demand commodities in thargoid society, one supposes.”

All at once the bridge was plunged back into darkness as the green light cut out. The thargoid made some more disgruntled honking noises and turned away. Jenny and I breathlessly watched as it sailed back to the megaship and moodily circled it.

“Will it attack?” I said. It looked meaner than any other interceptor I’d ever seen.

“Nah. I mean, probably not.”

“ _Probably?_ ”

“Well, I mean- sometimes they’ll fire on turrets if someone on the megaship is dumb enough to turn on the defences, but usually they’ll just take off. See! There he goes.”

Sure enough, the thargoid was now streaking off towards open space. An inky cloud yawned open ahead of it and then it was gone, leaving nothing worse than a swirling cloud of disturbed physics in its wake.

I gingerly relaxed. 

“Tangled with one of those things yet?” I said.

“Oh god, no. I’m not good enough to fight a Hydra. One day, though.”

Jenny shook a fist at the dissipating wake. “Live in fear, fucker. Anyway. Let’s go talk to the megaship and then go get a beer over at the Oracle! You’re looking a bit pale.”

I’m pretty sure I’m under strict orders to avoid alcohol, but what the hell. What Dr Wu doesn’t know won’t kill me.

____

Getting beers with the skeleton megaship repair crew. Seems like a bunch of people whose name doesn’t rhyme with ‘Schmenny’ had a stressful afternoon.


	7. Chapter 7

My head. 

____

What time is it? Have we been on the Oracle all day? I haven’t been this out of it since Reese and I tied one on at a tourist installation after I lost all that race money. I remember that too, amazingly. Reese drank a load of gin and then walked around drunkenly asking women if they’d seen his shoes while I cried into a sea of empty beer glasses. 

Hey, don’t judge. If you lost two million credits in ten minutes you’d cry too. 

____

The worst part is I only had three beers with Jenny and the megaship crew. Three! Normally there’s no way I’d be feeling like shit after anything less than six, maybe four if I’d been mixing drinks. It’s not a full-blown hangover yet at least. Mostly just nausea and a headache. This is embarrassing. 

At any rate, the megaship repair crew all laughed at my sad alcohol tolerance as they trooped off for the return flight back to the hauler. Jenny herself gave me this sort of half-amused, half-pitying look before she mockingly told me to be home by nine or strange women would pick me up and molest me, or steal all my money, or something. Jesus christ. I really should have wasted all her heat sinks while I had the chance. 

That was hours ago. Maybe Dr Wu was right. Maybe I should avoid alcohol until I’m in better health. And not on meds. 

Well, lesson learned. I’ll be good and stay away from the hooch for now.

____

I’ve just been hired to recover four tons of bootleg liquor. 

____

Ferrying the Phantom over to the Oracle as we speak. I am on a serious power fade here. Currently sitting in a coffee bar at the space station nursing an expresso. I don’t mind paying for the ferry over, and the allotted time for this recovery job is more than generous. 

Recovering salvage from planets tends to be pretty straightforward at least, nothing strenuous. Fly to a crash site, deploy an SRV, scoop the goods, fly back to the client. Sometimes you have to shoot down some trash-tier pirates on top of all that, but not always. It’s exactly the sort of work I need to stick to right now, at least until I don’t feel like a packet of smashed crap. 

The client this time is the Cooper Research Associates, an Alliance-based scientific organization. I sort of suspect they’re here to study the Thargoids alongside their skeevy Fed and Imperial counterparts, but I couldn’t prove it to you. I also couldn’t tell you why they’re so hot to get their hands on four tons of illegal liquor but wait maybe I just answered my own question right there. 

____

Phantom’s here. Good thing too, I was half-asleep at my table. This hand is basically a prop for my head right now.

Off to- wait, where am I going again? Do I even have a manifest yet?

____

Merope. Uh oh. Isn’t that the really dodgy system with all those thargoid barnacles?

____

Fuck, it is. But according to the nav beacon I just scanned, my target is on Merope 3 C and not the alien funtimes planet. So off I jolly well go. 

____

Chasing down the crash site now. I thought I had it pegged; then the targeting reticle had a nervous breakdown and skated across the HUD a few times before picking out a new location roughly three hundred kilometres away. 

Just as the Phantom dropped out of orbital glide too. Of course. 

Back into supercruise I go. 

____

Just find a stable signal, you fucker!

____

And... landed. Finally. 

It’s pitch dark out. I had to turn on the Phantom’s forward lights just to illuminate the barren crash site. Crumpled metal glints at the edge of the powerful beams. I can see what looks like the back end of a Cobra crunched into the rock, and some scattered canisters. Somebody had a bad day. 

At least there are no skimmers loitering around. I can’t stand those things. I do enjoy picking them off from my ship. Watching a mindless drone explode in a burst of multi-cannon rounds is pretty satisfying. But then I usually end up with a fine or a bounty for trespassing on a protected salvage site and for destroying private property, and the irritation comes back.

Just realized I’m going to have to drive the SRV around in low gravity while buzzed and nauseous. Ugh. If I hit a small rock and flip this thing I’m gonna hurl. 

____

There’s an escape pod out here. 

____

My ship is full of booze. Get me the hell off this planet before I throw up. 

____

Just securing all of the salvage now, including the escape pod. I always try to pick these things up when I come across them. God knows I’d want a friendly pilot to pick me up if I ever end up adrift in space inside a sealed metal coffin. Emphasis on ‘friendly.’

My armed and armoured Phantom is not outfitted to be a hauler in any sense of the word. Its cargo bay is tiny, mostly just intended for the occasional limpet or canister, and with the vehicle bay crammed in here I can’t squeeze in much of anything else. I make do when I need to. Four tons of anything doesn’t take up much room at least. 

Lights are activated on the escape pod. Vitals look stable. That’s good. I’ll turn it over to search and rescue officials once I’m back at the Oracle. My good deed for the day. 

____

Back in space. If a pirate interdicts me at this point over a measly four tons of cheap home-brewed piss liquor I will be pretty annoyed. 

Hmm. 

Just had a thought. Cooper Research hired me to recover all of this alcohol, but not to rescue their stranded pilot? That’s kind of a dick move.

Think I’ll wake the guy up. He’s had a pretty lousy day. I bet he could use some friendly company right now. 

____

Starting to see why Cooper ditched this guy. Arm the harpoons.


	8. Chapter 8

A stranger is wandering loose in my ship! I’ll skin his ass!

____

What was that I just heard back there a bang! Did something break? What?

____

I am unpleasantly reminded of the reason why I don’t fly self-loading baggage aboard any of my ships. Someone please put a bullet through my head if I ever get the insane notion to try hauling passengers for easy money. 

____

All I can hear is the ‘clonk clonk clonk’ of mag-boots staggering up and down the corridor outside the bridge. Every now and then it’ll fade into the distance, only to return less than a minute later. It echoes straight into my soul. 

The sound is driving me a little batty. What is my disoriented rescuee doing back there? Is he touching anything? He better not be touching anything. I nearly hit another ship in supercruise just now because I keep trying to twist around in my seat to see what is going on behind me. 

Clonk clonk clonk. Christ. This is worse than that time Kilmartin convinced me to babysit all those guard dogs for her while she tried to set up a used shipyard out in HIP 17692. For two nights I endured the nonstop TIKKATIKKATIKKA of clawed feet pacing across my hardwood floors, then the chaotic eruption of a pack of animals going berserk all at once whenever someone walked past in the park below. 

Man. I’m losing it. I’ll scoop this last star and then drag my guest back into the cockpit. 

____

Mission accomplished. 

____

Ahh, silence. 

____

Harmony is restored to the world. My guest is belted into the jumpseat and we’re a jump away from Delphi. I am getting verbal abuse hurled at me, but I can live with a one-star review of my passenger service if it means I don’t have to fret over strange people walking through my ship and touching things in my ship and generally just breathing the same scrubbed air as me.

Wow. I used to be social once. And calm, and steady. Whatever happened to that Simon Falx? Oh right, the torture. 

____

My scowling guest is sulking in the jumpseat. Good for him.

His sullen distraction has given me the opportunity to size him up from the corner of my eye. He can’t be any older than twenty-five. Black hair, heavily shadowed green eyes, and a little on the pale and scrawny side. He looks exhausted. There’s a massive bruise on the left side of his face that runs all the way down his neck and into his jacket, like he got thrown into a bulkhead really hard. Ouch. 

He’s got his thermal jacket zipped to his throat with the thick collar turned up high, like he’s trying to hide in it. He refuses to look me in the eye. I can’t see a Pilot Federation badge or any other marks of identification on his shoulder, not even for Cooper Research. There’s a tattoo of something on his left wrist, but it’s mostly hidden by the cuff of his jacket. Hm. 

It’s all a bit odd. My suspicious bastard senses are tingling. I’m freelance, but even I run basic PF marks with all my IDs. It makes getting contract work a hell of a lot easier for starters. 

Hmm. Out of a lack of anything better to do, I said, “We’ll be in Delphi shortly.”

Nothing. 

“I’ll drop you off at the Cooper office on the Oracle. I suggest getting checked out at a clinic after that. Escape pod ejections can be rough on your everything.”

My guest stubbornly glared straight ahead. 

“What’s your name?”

His eyes darted all over the place. Yes, not at all suspicious. So I said in my most jovial voice, “I’m pretty sure I could physically throw you out of an airlock.”

“All right, fine! I’m- Patrick.”

“Uh huh. I’m Simon. Were you flying that Cobra I found crashed in Merope?”

“I- yes.”

“I was hired to recover the cargo from that ship.”

No response.

“Cooper Research gave me its full manifest. Why aren’t you listed as the pilot for that flight? Who was a woman, by the way.”

Still the kid said nothing. I think he was holding his breath.

“Fess up. Were you actually flying that thing? Or were you flying as freight?”

Patrick slouched down further into his jacket. I was beginning to think I should have shone a light into the Cobra’s shattered cockpit and looked for a corpse. I’d only found one escape pod after all.

“Picked the wrong ship to stow away on, huh?” I said.

The kid mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“I said, it’s none of your business!”

“That was compete bullshit about the manifest, by the way.”

Now I had his full and outraged attention. I advanced the throttle for the final jump. 

“Let me give you a word of advice,” I said. “Don’t even dream of trying to slip back aboard this ship after we get to the Oracle. I don’t know where you’re trying to get to, and I don’t care. I am however armed and trained in some sort of deadly martial art. Also I keep wild dogs in the cargo hold?”

The kid didn’t even crack a smirk at my half-hearted threat. He just sat and stonily watched the wheeling starfield ahead of us. Tough audience. But I think my point was made.

Next stop: Delphi.

____

Annnnd... payday.

I pulled up the comm panel and dialled Cooper Research the instant my engines spooled down upon touchdown on the landing pad at the Oracle. I’m not desperate for cash, but something about the collection of a fee after an everyday salvage job has a comforting sense of routine about it. I made seven-hundred grand, and the galaxy keeps spinning. That sort of thing.

The local Cooper representative seemed pleased about the recovered liquor too. I was itching to ask him about the escape pod and it’s dodgy occupant, but something about the way the kid shrank back into the jumpseat like he was trying to lean out of sight made me hold my tongue. 

The Cooper man didn’t even ask once about the fate of the pilot. I sat back with crossed arms and thought about that for a while as automechs unloaded the damaged canisters from my cargo hold. Something didn’t add up.

The puzzled feeling persisted even when I deployed the ramp down to the landing pad. Pat shadowed me through the ship at a wary distance, like he really thought I was going to fly kick him in the throat at any moment. I just laughed out loud at that mental image, and he spooked. Skittish kid.

It was a busy evening at the Oracle. Ships roared overhead. The air stank of fumes. Lots of light and noise and clamour. I stood at the top of the ramp to let my eyes and ears adjust to the confusion. 

Pat had other ideas. He pushed past me and took a flying leap off the bottom of the ramp and hurried off across the landing pad with his head down and his hands stuffed into his pockets. Not a word of thanks for the save or for the ride. I gave him a disgusted look before I followed him down much more slowly on my stiff knees.

One of the fuellers watched him go. “Does that belong to you?”

“Nope, it’s running wild and free as god intended.”

The fueller laughed. I sighed and rubbed my hand through my hair. Kind of tired. It’s been a long day. Think I’ll grab some fuel and then head back to my apartment for the rest of the evening.

____

Ahh, back at Artemis. A Cutter pilot on the pad adjacent to mine is screaming at the ground crew - something about jet blast and artificial tree pollen. Home sweet snooty home.

____

It’s dark out. Well, as dark as nights can get aboard a climate controlled space station. My apartment is dimmed and all the blinds are shuttered. The only light I have to see by as I wander the living room is whatever slip glows through the bottom edge of the blinds.

Ow, fuck! Just walked straight into the corner of the coffee table. Sitting down on the sofa to spare my other shin.

Can’t sleep. Been feeling weird and restless all evening for some reason, a feeling my usual horse pills can’t take the edge off of. Don’t really know what set this off. Maybe it was that kid I picked up. That wary, hunted face.

Kinda sense it’s gonna be a rough night. There are good nights and bad nights these days. 

Think I’ll call Claire.

____

Just got soundly told off by my tired, grumpy girlfriend. Her exact words were, “It’s four am here, Simon! I have patrols in the morning! Go to sleep, you shit! I love you!”

Yeah, I kind of love her too.


	9. Chapter 9

Sitting groggily at my kitchen table in my boxers and t-shirt, eating a box of leftover Werapana shrimp for breakfast. I live a charmed life. 

The news is on in the living room. I’m half-watching it, half-squinting at the ships buzzing around outside my apartment window. The blinds are up and I’m being bombarded by artificial daylight. It’s so cheerful I could puke. 

Man. I really need a coffee. Had kind of an off night. Slept maybe four hours in total. I had this really weird dream that I’d lost my shoes somewhere and couldn’t find them. So I woke up with the irritable, anxious feeling that I’m missing something. Totally irrational. 

Don’t know what I want to do today. Maybe chase some bounties. Maybe sleep for twelve hours. You know, your basic day where you sit around feeling sorry for yourself. 

Hm. 

Now I’m eyeballing my apartment window. Ships are zipping back and forth between the pads with an almost giddy urgency. There’s an awful lot of exploration decals flashing around out there. What is up with that?

____

On the horn with Jenny. She pays far more attention to exploration-related news than I do. 

“Are you dense?” Her exasperated face peered at me from the holographic panel I’d called up at my table. It looked like she was already aboard her Krait. “A new megaship just came online to ferry ships back and forth between Zende and one of the Guardian sites. Everybody’s saddling up to go take a look at it.”

“Oh.”

“I’m going too. You should come with me! Take the Phantom! We can be Krait buddies.”

With as much dignity as I could muster while in my underwear, I said, “I will not. What am I, ten years old?”

Jenny went ‘ffft!’ at me. 

I thought it over. Zende wasn’t that far from the Pleiades. And I needed something better to do than sit in my apartment like a gargoyle all day. 

I crumpled up the shrimp box and threw it at the bin. Missed by a foot. 

“I’ll come with you, though,” I said. “A new ferry ship sounds interesting. Let’s make a day out of it.”

Jenny pumped a fist. 

“Yes!” she said. “I’ll meet you in the hangars! Maybe we can catch a ride to the Guardian site too! It’s been ages since I’ve seen one!”

I smiled. Already I was feeling a little better. She’s so easy to please. And her infectious good cheer can make even a shitty day shine. 

“And maybe there will be Thargoids!”

Oh please god no. 

____

In my flight suit and jacket and on my way out the door. I’m taking the Courier, because it goes really really fast and I’m actually twelve.

____

Walkaround complete. No strangers lurking aboard the Courier. Given that it’s about eighty percent engine if you wanted to stow away on this ship you’d have to do it in a shoebox. 

Now I’m sitting in the cockpit with the nav panel called up and my route laid out. It’ll be a fourteen jump trip to Zende, but I couldn’t care less. _Wild Hare_ is a joy to fly. It took a lot of engineering to hone it to the molecular-fine boundary that divides combat prowess from pure racing speed, but the work paid off beautifully. My sleek black murder girl has kept me alive through thick and thin, and I love her for it. 

I leaned back in my seat and looked up though the canopy. That Cutter was back on the large pad directly above mine. Its pilot was waving their arms at the ground crew again. Jenny’s Krait was warming up its engines somewhere behind me. 

Idly, I folded my hands behind my head and watched the ships pass overhead. It was a busy day for Artemis Lodge. An almost festive air hung over the interior of the station. This new ferry megaship had people humming. I think we all get really bored out here in the Pleiades sometimes, and jump eagerly at any form of entertainment. 

Okay, I’m laughing. A Diamondback just swanned past with the name SISTER FISTER proudly emblazoned on its port side nameplate. What the hell! See what I mean about easily entertained?

Just then I heard Jenny chuckle evilly to herself over our private comm. Instantly I was wary. That sound never boded well. 

I sat up in my seat and hit the comm. 

“Something you want to share, Jen?” I said. 

“Ha! Don’t lose your shit, but those bitches sitting on pads twenty-five and seventeen are laughing at your ship.”

I casually glanced over. A pair of gleaming Clippers bedecked in sparkly exploration Elite decals sat on the pads adjacent to my Courier, dwarfing my much smaller ship. I couldn’t see through their shielded glass to see if bitches were pointing down at my _Wild Hare_ or not, but I know Jenny monitors all en route frequencies like a hawk so I was willing to take her word for it. 

“Oh yeah?” I said. “Well, they’re driving exploration ships, and I’m sitting on a pair of enhanced performance G5 dirties. Let’s see who’s laughing five minutes from now.”

Jenny cackled. I think she had a good idea of what was coming next. 

Takeoff clearances were issued. I gently rose from the pad just as the Clippers lifted off. We all lined up with the mailslot and I slammed the throttle forward and hit boost. I mean, I fucking firewalled it. The Courier roared into life and was through the slot and five kilometres away before the first Clipper had even stuck its nose outside of the station. Somewhere beneath the sound of my monster engines I heard a controller yelling at me.

I was doing lazy victory rolls outside the reach of the Artemis’ guns by the time the Clippers caught up. Little puffs of their lateral thrusters brought them alongside me, sandwiching my ship between them. 

I thought for sure I was about to be gangland executed, or else soundly told off, but all that happened was a feminine voice squealed over the comm, “That was so cool!”

“You had to be doing at least seven-hundred going out of the slot,” said a second female voice. 

“Eight-hundred fifty,” I admitted. 

“Shut up! That’s awesome.”

Well, at least the Clipper pilots had a sense of humour. It occurred to me that neither girl sounded any older than twenty. 

“We’re going to Zende to check out the new ferry,” said the second Clipper. “Want to wing up with us?”

“I-“

 _Glass Houses_ swooped up just then. 

“We’re going to Zende too!” said Jenny. “Let’s go together. The more the merrier.”

“We-“

“I’m Nadia,” said one of the Clippers. “That’s Annika. Have you ever been to the Synuefe D11-96 site before? This is Annika’s first trip.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there twice! But that was like a year ago. I’m Jenny.”

“I’m-“

Now they’re all talking about the jump ranges of their ships, their noses together in a huddle while my Courier drifts around aimlessly in the background and departing ships highwake out all around us. I sorta shrugged and gave up. Oh well. New friends good. 

____

Well, it looks like we’re all going to the megaship and then the Guardian site together. Road trip!

____

Both the Clippers and Jenny’s Krait have jump ranges greater than forty lightyears. I’m puttering after them in a ship with a jump range of slightly less than thirty-five. They’ve effortlessly cruised ahead of me by at least three systems and are happily gadding to themselves over the comm. I am humbled and put in my place.


	10. Chapter 10

Megaship big. 

——

Having gawked at the Zende ferry ship, we’re now off to the Synuefe Guardian site. Fourteen jumps for the girls, seventeen for me. Sigh. 

Why are we doing the trip ourselves again? I thought this megaship was supposed to be a ferry. Turns out it only jumps one day a week. Sigh. Frown.  

——

You’d think flying around with three young women would be exciting times, but mostly they just tease me over the comm. 

“Where’s Simon?” said one of the girls. 

“Four systems behind us,” said Jenny. 

“Four systems behind you,” I said. 

Loud laughter. 

“Would you like me to come back there and keep you company?” I think that was Nadia. She seems the more outspoken of the two. 

“If you want,” I said in amusement. 

“What’s the jump range on that Courier anyway?”

“Thirty-four light years?”

Jokey gasps. Then a soft, “Oh nooo.”

I have no idea who that was. 

“Oh, that would drive me crazy after a while,” said Nadia. 

“I once had a Cobra that did thirty-two.” Annika spoke nostalgically. “It took forever to get anywhere, but I loved that ship.”

I arrived at the next system en route and absently turned my ship to scoop off the star. “What got you girls into exploration?” 

“University,” said Nadia. “We both studied together, then decided to take a year off after our graduate year to go on a galaxy-wide trip.”

“The scan data paid off our debts too,” said Annika.

“Wish I’d done that,” grumbled Jenny. “I went straight to work hauling freight for my parents. So boring.”

“And now you hunt aliens,” I reminded her. 

Nadia’s voice turned cheeky. “What do you do, Simon?”

“I-eee do odd jobs?”

“Do any of them include killing people with those guns on your ship?”

“Maybe?”

“Are you hot?” 

“Nadia!”

“Eight out of ten,” I said. 

More laughter. 

“He has a girlfriend already, ladies.” Ah, Jenny, right there to defend my honour. “And she’s kind of mean and bosses him around a lot.” Or not. 

Explosive laughter. 

“If pirates attack us will you protect our ships?” said Nadia. I could almost hear the coy hair-twirling.

“Maybe if you give me all of your scan data for this trip.”

“Hey!”

I mean, the chance of pirates attacking anyone in a remote Guardian system were pretty much slim to none, so it wasn’t exactly like anyone flying a defenceless exploration ship with paper-thin shields had anything to worry about anyway. 

——

I arrived at Synuefe D11-96 about ten minutes behind the girls. I found them all circling around the main star in supercruise. 

“There he is,” said Annika. 

“Look at all the ships, Si!” said Jenny. 

I inspected my scanner. It was covered in blips.

“Wow, what the hell,” I said. 

“Right?! I think half the Bubble is out here.”

“Honk the system!” said Nadia. 

I obediently did as told. Instantly my nav panel lit up with unidentified signal targets. 

“That’s a lot of signals,” I said. 

Jenny sounded like she was practically bouncing in her seat. “What do you want to do first?”

“Let’s drop in on some of these degraded signals,” said Annika. “I see threat warnings attached to a few of them.”

“Yeah, there might be some cool salvage we could pick up!” said Nadia. 

For a pair of wide-explorers there was a certain mercenarial bent to their life strategy that I had to admire. 

——

There’s a load of Guardian shit in these debris fields!

——

Okay, let me back up a bit.

Following Nadia’s lead, we all dropped in on one of the degraded signals. The instant we fell out of supercruise we found ourselves surrounded by a broad field of charred and twisted metal. 

“Uh oh.” 

With little bursts of her thrusters, Nadia pivoted her ship around to take in the sight of the debris. “Somebody had a rotten day.”

“Do you think this happened recently?” said Annika. 

“Probably. Some of this junk still looks a bit, uh, smouldery?”

Sure enough, I could spy the fading incandescence of recently extinguished fires glowing within some of the drifting wreckage. It was hard to piece together what kind of ship it had once belonged to, but it appeared to be the remains of some sort of cargo hauler. 

“Looks like this guy got jumped,” I said. 

“Pirates!” said Nadia. 

Jenny loudly squealed. 

“Oh my god!” she said. “Scan the debris! There’s a ton of Guardian stuff floating around in the middle of it!”

There was. Power cells, spare tech, that sort of thing. 

“People must be lifting it from the ruins to sell it,” said Annika. “I bet Guardian tech sells for a premium on the right market.”

“Sounds about right,” I said. 

“So who attacked this poor slob?” said Nadia. 

Without warning a solitary little Cobra covered in corrosion and spikes jumped into our midst with a loud bang, like, ‘ah ha!’

“You’ve fallen into a trap!” yelled the pirate over his scratchy comm. “Now hand over all your- uh.”

He awkwardly trailed off as two Clippers, a Krait, and a Courier all slowly turned around to take a good look at him.

“Oh, never mind,” said Nadia. “Hey, did your Cobra have spikes all over it too, Annika?”

“Yeah. I was going through a phase, okay.”

Meanwhile, the Cobra had thrown itself into reverse. It’s forward-facing thrusters glowed bright red as it tried to discreetly back its way out of the debris field. Chunks of wreckage clonked off its rear hull and spun off into the void. My brain helpfully supplied the ‘beep beep beep’ backup noise as the poor stupid bastard sidled out of our immediate blast range. 

“Guys, the pirate is getting away,” said Jenny. “Simon, isn’t this your cue?”

I made a dismissive noise like ‘meh.’

“I scanned the guy’s bounty,” I said. “It wouldn’t even cover the cost of the multicannon rounds.”

“Simon! That’s terrible! I’m pretty sure he blew someone up!”

“Yeah, someone died here, Simon,” said Nadia. 

In the distance I heard the hastily bang of the Cobra booking it into supercruise. 

“And now he’s gone!” said Jenny. “Geez!”

So now all the girls are mad at me because I wouldn’t kill the shit-tier pirate. I’m not made out of ammunition, people. 

——

We found an escape pod amidst the debris. So the girls are all happy again. I felt like pointing out that they were giving me grief for not shooting down a pirate for the crime of murder while they blithely scooped up the victim’s load of pillaged salvage, but ultimately kept my mouth shut. I know when I’m outnumbered. 

On our way to the only station in the system. I hope that cargo pilot is comfortable in his escape pod. Having happy dreams. Because I’m pretty sure he isn’t getting his Guardian junk back.

——

Dropped off the escape pod. Now we’re all sitting around chowing down on lunch at the station food court. It’s really dark in here, with just some strip neon lighting to illuminate the various eateries and their signs. Typical outpost fare. 

I think Jenny is thrilled to have new friends. She’s talking really quickly and loudly. 

“We should go down to the Guardian site next!” she said. “I’m gonna get an orb as a souvenir. I was thinking a casket, but that might be kind of morbid. And disrespectful? Urns are nice though, I could also go for an urn.  Fuck, this is good gazpacho.”

“Have you been eating sugar packets again?” I said. 

Nadia and Annika turned out to be a tiny chatty redhead with zero respect for personal space and a really tall dark-haired perpetual frowner, respectively. I was a bit taken aback by the latter, actually. She looks stern, but she’s got this Zen jazz radio DJ thing going on. It’s weirdly calming. 

Both girls have decreed that I am indeed at least a seven out of ten. So I’m back in their good books again. 

Nadia is sitting right next to me. She keeps trying to pet my hair. Normally I would be down with women combing their fingers through my hair, but I’m not really big on being touched these days. Also I have a girlfriend?

“I’d like to see the Guardian site too,” said Annika. She was calmly eating a salad. I’m impressed they can get real produce out here. “I’ve heard it’s a large one.”

“Oh yeah, it’s huge,” said Nadia. “I think you can scan it for a decent blueprint too. I love your hair! I wish I could dye mine that colour. Or afford the nanite treatment.”

I dodged her incoming hand by leaning back. “Thanks.”

Jenny had more practical thoughts on her mind. 

“While I was in line for lunch I heard from this other pilot that the local factions are paying a lot for Guardian commodities,” she said. “So we should definitely get in on that while we’re down on the planet.”

Annika looked dubious. “Aren’t those relics priceless artifacts?”

“I dunno, maybe? They use them to science up new weapons for fighting Thargoids, and I’m totally on board with that.”

Nadia was back on my hair again. It seemed to fascinate her. 

“It’s so pretty!” she said. 

Didn’t know how to respond to that. “Uh, thanks?”

“When did it go all silver like this?”

“At the age of thirteen I was attacked by a giant monster spider, and the shock turned my hair white.”

“Uh...”

“I’m shitting you. I was born this way.”

“That’s really cool!”

Meanwhile, Jenny and Annika were sitting back in their seats with solemn expressions, like a pair of ancient philosophers. It looked they might be in the middle of a pretty serious conversation about the morality of excavating the relics of a long-dead civilization for personal profit, so I tried to eavesdrop. 

“I’m thinking late 3305,” said Jenny.  

“I’m going to say early 3306.”

So Jenny got up and walked over to this nearby bistro and bent over to check out the expiration date on a box of synthetic jerky. “March 3306,” she said, and Annika put her fists into the air like a champion boxer. 

On our way planetside now. 

——

Just arrived at the Guardian site. I’ve landed my tiny Courier right next to to the ruins and the girls are all scuttling around overhead trying to find a suitable patch of rock that will accommodate their much larger ships. HAHAHA. 

——

Just realized I don’t have an SRV bay installed in the Courier.


	11. Chapter 11

I got back to my apartment in Artemis Lodge at around two am local time. I pushed open the door and tiredly went to throw my ID on the counter, and a harsh voice said, “Do you know where I can get my hands on one hundred-sixty thousand tons of corn?”

A figure sat in the dark at my kitchen table. 

Internally, I screamed. Externally, I clutched my heart and sagged against the wall. “Lights!”

The apartment lights sprang on one by one. Kilmartin’s brow furrowed, like she was squinting behind her sunglasses. 

“Time to switch to decaf, Simon,” she said. 

“Kilmartin!  What the hell are you doing in my apartment!”

“Waiting for you, obviously.”

“I thought I was getting fucking ambushed!”

“Why would you think that?  Oh right, the torture.”

My heart raced in my chest. I staggered over to the closet and threw my jacket inside it before rounding on Kilmartin. She sat enveloped in her usual air of stone-faced ennui, completely indifferent to the fact she’d just taken ten years off my life. A holopanel was drawn up in front of her folded hands. I swiftly recognized my inbox. 

“What are you doing here!” I said, in a sort of yell. 

“Looking for one hundred-sixty thousand tons of corn, cracked preferably.”

“Have you been going through my mail?!”

“Only the adverts.”

“Why are you wearing your sunglasses in the dark?!”

She gave me a funny look. “I’m not.”

I collapsed into the chair across from her. Kilmartin critically studied me as I thunked my elbows on the table and rubbed my hands over my face. 

“Maybe you need to see that shrink Harper has been on you about after all,” she said. 

“Maybe you’re the one who needs to seek serious mental counselling, you ever consider that?”

Frown face. “My corn?”

I dropped my hands and sat up. “Yeah. About that. What the hell do you need that sort of produce for anyway?”

“I’m expanding certain home-label business ventures and need a certain amount of capital to get the ball rolling.”

“Is this something that’s going to get me arrested in the morning?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

With a weary sigh I rose to my feet. 

“I’ve been at that Guardian site all day,” I said. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Borrow my terminal if you need to. Just don’t do anything that will get me thrown in prison again, please.”

Kilmartin looked thoughtful. “Do you still own that Orca?”

“Can we talk about it in the morning, please!”

Shrug. 

I stopped at the fridge on my way to the bedroom hall. I had my hand on the door when her voice drifted out again. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’m storing certain pandemic pathogens in there until my people can pick them up in the morning.”

Jesus christ. 

I went to bed. 

——

The next morning I woke up feeling fuzzy and irritated. I tottered into the kitchen in my underwear and Kilmartin was still fucking in there!

The lights were on and the blinds were up. Cheery artificial daylight streamed over the bizarre scene playing out. Kilmartin had shucked off her jacket and rolled up her shirtsleeves. Half the contents of my fridge lay spread out over the countertop and she had a pan going over the stovetop. The scent of griddling eggs and ham mingled with the woody odour of the cigar she was smoking. 

I’ll give Kilmartin one thing: that bitch can cook. She can cook like a demon. Breakfasts are her specialty, but on at least one occasion she’s ambushed me with a six course diner before asking me for my banking information. 

Kilmartin glanced back when I lingered in the entrance and rocked on my bare feet. Smoke hazed around her unsmiling face. 

“About that Orca,” she said. 

I pointed at the pan. “Is that going to give me smallpox?”

“What? Oh, no, my courier picked up that package hours ago.” 

I sat down heavily at the table. Ships buzzed past my apartment windows as traffic flowed in and out of the station interior. Another busy day at Artemis Lodge. Business as usual. 

“What do you need my Orca for?” I said. 

Kilmartin flipped the sizzling contents of the pan. “I need to move some people and commodities around really quickly. It’s the fastest big ship I can think of.”

“Is this an illegal venture?”

“No, it’s mostly above board.”

“Mostly?”

I could all but hear Kilmartin roll her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Maybe a few of the passengers will have unpaid parking tickets, relax. It’s not like you’re using the ship for anything. You have a problem, Simon.”

I gave her the evil eye at that. 

But my brain turned it over. I actually do own an Orca. I bought it on impulse just over a year ago, armoured it, engineered it with the fastest thrusters money could buy, and then forgot all about it. Huh. Maybe I do have a problem. A fast ship problem. 

Kilmartin was right about one thing, though. _Dumpster Temptation_ was sitting in storage doing nothing over in HIP 17692. It would probably do the engines some good to be run up again. 

Still, I felt certain limitations needed to be obeyed at this point. I held up a finger. 

“Promise me it won’t end up hot on a bounty board somewhere, and it’s yours,” I said. 

“Fine.”

“And don’t scratch the paint!”

“I never scratch the paint.”

“I’ve seen your Krait! I want it brought back in the same condition it left in. No rammings!”

Kilmartin expertly flipped the omelette she was cooking onto a plate and slid the whole thing in front of me.  

“Eat something,” she said. “Get your blood sugar back up. Your ship is in good hands.”

I seriously doubted that. 

But damn, that omelette smelled good. I eyed her suspiciously as I picked up a fork. I felt pretty certain I was being bought off with tasty food. That crafty bitch.

——

Kilmartin called me up ten minutes ago. I’m still laughing at the upset voice message she left me. Hang on, I’ll transcribe it:

LK: _Simon! This ship! What did you name this fucking ship! It’s atrocious! I just got laughed at through two separate checkpoints! You fucking idiot! Don’t touch that, that’s an oxidizing substance. Put your feet down! No, I already paid for that. Because I said so, that’s why! Simon! I’ll call you back._


End file.
